The collection includes that of Elias Ashmole which he had collected himself, including objects he had acquired from the gardeners, travellers and collectors John Tradescant the elder and his son of the same name.

Many of these, such as the Harleian MS 279, Harleian MS 4016, Ashmole MS 1429, Laud MS 553 and Dure MS 55, give very good information and record the re-discovery of many herbs and spices including coriander, parsley, basil and rosemary, many of which had been brought back from the Crusades.

The importance placed on lineage in early modern Europe meant that antiquarianism was often closely associated with genealogy, and a number of prominent antiquaries ( including Robert Glover, William Camden, William Dugdale and Elias Ashmole ) held office as professional heralds.

Nevertheless, the marriage provided Ashmole with Mary's first husband's estates centred on Bradfield in Berkshire which left him wealthy enough to pursue his interests, now including botany and alchemy, without concern for his livelihood.

Ashmole embarked on further catalogues, including one of the Roman coin collection of the Bodleian Library, which he finally completed in 1666 after eight years of work.

Image: Stained glass-Elias Ashmole coat of arms. jpg | Stained glass window on the staircase at the museum, including Elias Ashmole's coat of arms

The Aberdeen Bestiary is related to other bestiaries of the Middle Ages and especially the Ashmole Bestiary.

Bodleian Library, MS. Ashmole 1511, Ashmole Bestiary | The Ashmole Bestiary, Folio 21r, England ( Peterborough?

* Elias Ashmole ( 1617 – 1692 ), English antiquary and politician

Heraldic banners and crests of King Charles II and his brother James, Duke of York ( later James II ), observed by Elias Ashmole, Windsor Herald.

His father, Simon Ashmole ( 1589 – 1634 ), was a saddler, who had served as a soldier in Ireland and Europe.

On 1 April 1668, Lady Mainwaring died, and on 3 November the same year Ashmole married Elizabeth Dugdale ( 1632 – 1701 ), the much younger daughter of his friend and fellow herald, the antiquarian Sir William Dugdale.

Surviving documents indicate that he was the most popular candidate, but after King James II requested he stand down ( in an age when monarchs were likely to interfere with parliamentary elections ), Ashmole did so.

He maintained his links with the University and, in 1677, Ashmole made a gift of the Tradescant Collection, together with material he had collected independently, to the University on the condition that a suitable home be built to house the materials and make them available to the public.

Sixty-four volumes of his manuscripts were collected by Elias Ashmole in the seventeenth century, and are now held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

As reported by Elias Ashmole in The Institution, Laws, and Ceremony of the Most Noble Order of the Garter ( 1672 ) Ch.

The Ashmolean museum, however, founded in 1677 from the personal collection of Elias Ashmole, was set up in the University of Oxford to be open to the public and is considered by some to be the first modern public museum.

* William Lilly, History of His Life and Times from the year 1602 to 1681, 1715, London, by Elias Ashmole.

* William Lilly and Elias Ashmole, Lives of Those Eminent Antiquaries Elias Ashmole and Mr. William Lilly, published by T. Davies, 1772, London.

( Accounts of Kelley's finding the book and the powder in the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey were first published by Elias Ashmole, but are contradicted by Dee's diaries.

Also available in a fair copy by Elias Ashmole, Sloane MS. 3677.

Another crucial manuscript, ( Sloan ms. 3188, also available in a fair copy by Elias Ashmole, MS Sloane 3677. Available online at: ).

Elias Ashmole by William Faithorne, 1656

The King commissioned Ashmole to prepare a catalogue of the coins and medals held in the Royal Collection, and appointed him to the commission responsible for tracing items from the collection which had been dispersed or sold by the parliamentary regime.

Elias Ashmole wearing a tabard as Windsor Herald, painted by Cornelius de Neve in 1664. Private Collection of Dugdale baronets | Sir William Dugdale, Blyth Hall, Warwickshire.

Elias Ashmole by John Riley ( artist ) | John Riley, c. 1683.

In 1678, Ashmole stood as a candidate in a by-election for the Lichfield borough parliamentary constituency caused by the death of one of the two incumbent members.

On election day, all the votes cast for Ashmole, instead of being declared invalid, were declared as votes for the King's candidate, and only as a result of this ruse was the candidate favoured by the Court ( Richard Leveson ) elected.

Fasciculus Chemicus was revised by Dee sometime between 1631 and 1633 and translated from Latin into English by Elias Ashmole in 1650 under the anagrammatic pseudonym of " James Hasholle " ( by substitution of the letter J for I ).

* Fasciculus chemicus of Arthur Dee ; translated by Elias Ashmole ; edited by Lyndy Abraham.

Elias Ashmole was ( according to Aubrey ) a neighbour in Surrey, though Ashmole's estates acquired by marriage were over the county line in Berkshire ; and Oughtred's name has been mentioned in purported histories of early freemasonry, a suggestion that Oughtred was present at Ashmole's 1646 initiation going back to Thomas De Quincey.

* 1617 – Elias Ashmole, English antiquarian ( d. 1692 )

* May 23 – Elias Ashmole, English antiquarian ( d. 1692 )

* Elias Ashmole gifts the collection that begins the Ashmolean Museum to Oxford University.

Its first building was built in 1678 – 1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities Elias Ashmole gave Oxford University in 1677.

* May 18 – Elias Ashmole, English antiquarian ( b. 1617 )

The legend inspired a variety of works, among them the works of Michael Maier ( 1568 – 1622 ) of Germany ; Robert Fludd ( 1574 – 1637 ) and Elias Ashmole ( 1617 – 1692 ) of England ; Teophilus Schweighardt Constantiens, Gotthardus Arthusius, Julius Sperber, Henricus Madathanus, Gabriel Naudé, Thomas Vaughan, and others.

Its first building was built in 1678 – 1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities Elias Ashmole gave Oxford University in 1677.

Earlier alumni include Henry Addington, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Elias Ashmole founder of the Ashmolean Museum, John Buchan, author of The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Clavell, highwayman and author, Colin Cowdrey, English Test batsman, William Webb Ellis, often credited with the invention of Rugby football, John Foxe author of Actes and Monuments popularly abridged as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, William Golding, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, and Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury.

* Elias Ashmole

Elias Ashmole and the anonymous author of Gloria Mundi ( 1620 ) claim that its history goes back to Adam who acquired the knowledge of the stone directly from God.

Lilly was on intimate terms with Bulstrode Whitelocke, William Lenthall the speaker, Sir Philip Stapleton, Elias Ashmole and others.

In 1650, Lilly wrote a preface to Sir Christopher Heydon's An Astrological Discourse with Mathematical Demonstrations, a defence of astrology written about 1608 which was first published posthumously, largely at the expense of Elias Ashmole.